Food Grade Glycerin is a versatile compound that boasts a variety of industrial usage. For foods and beverages, it is used primarily as a humectant, or moisture retainer. As a food additive, it is used as filler in commercially prepared low-fat foods and as a thickening agent in liqueurs. As sweet as table sugar by 60 percent, it contains around 27 calories per teaspoon. Though the American Dietetic Association categorized glycerin as a carbohydrate and has the same calorie units as that of sucrose, it doesn’t induce hyperglycemia (or elevated blood sugar level) nor feeds plaque-forming bacteria. It makes a good alternative sweetener. Along with propylene glycol (labeled as E1520 and/or E422), it is used to produce snus, a Swedish snuff. Glycerin is also manufactured as a polyglycerol ester made into shortenings and margarines and mono- and di-glycerides to be used as emulsifiers.
Medical, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic preparations primarily mix food grade glycerin to serve also as humectant, lubricant, and gloss. It is blended in cough syrups, expectorants, toothpastes and oral care products, lotions, shaving foams, hair care products, and water-based personal lubricants. Glycerin is also used as a caking agent in solid medical preparations such as pills. It is a popular laxative in suppository or enema form by encouraging a hyperosmotic effect through anal mucosa irritation.
In its purest form, glycerin is also an effective remedy for skin conditions like burns, bites, psoriasis, cuts, rashes, calluses, and bedsores. It can also be applied orally to control halitosis, as it is an effective bacterial dessicant. Especially with food grade variety, it is also effective with periodontal diseases because it penetrates the bacterial aggregation quickly and eliminates bacterial colonies.
Glycerin also prevents liquefaction of tannins in herbal tinctures, or ethanol extracts of plants. It can also be a good substitute for ethanol as a solvent in herbal extraction preparations. Because of its bacteriostatic action, it is also a stable preservative for botanical products. When utilized in proper concentrations in an extraction solvent base, food grade glycerin does not allow chemical breakdown of a finished extract’s components over several years.